


The Trouble with Blue Boxes

by redtailedhawk90



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate, Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Crossover, Explicit Language, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-06
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-01-14 20:35:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 16,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1278088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redtailedhawk90/pseuds/redtailedhawk90
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That one time the Doctor and Rose finished growing the TARDIS and ended up giving the Ellimist a run for his money in being masters of event manipulation.</p>
<p>aka That one time the Doctor and Rose screwed everything up for the Animorphs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1 -- Tobias

My name is Tobias. I won’t tell you my last name, although even if you tracked me down to the house where I used to live, you wouldn’t find me. I now live in the woods outside of town. There’s a clearing about as big as a football field, filled with the kind of tall grass prey like to hide in. My perch has an excellent view of the whole area.

I’m a hawk, you see, red-tailed hawk to be precise. My eyes are gold and stare with an intensity that unnerves even my friends. I have dark brown feathers on my wings, a cream-colored chest, and rust-red tail feathers. But I used to be human. Just another teenager on the edges of society. Messy blonde hair, average size, a habit of flinching away from people when they got too close. No real friends. A loser. A dweeb. The kind of kid that attracts bullies.

That was how I met Jake. He stopped some kids from pushing my head down a toilet. I sort of stayed with him after that, and he was too nice to say anything to make me leave. That was why I happened to be with his group when they decided to take the shortcut home through the construction site. Me, Jake, his best friend Marco, his cousin Rachel, and her best friend Cassie. On the way through the construction site, a spaceship dropped out of the sky and landed. A dying warrior, the Andalite Prince Elfangor, told us that we were under attack. An invasion. I know you think that something like that would be all over the television, but you’d be wrong. They’re here. The Yeerks.

They look like large slugs, no more of a threat than the things you see crawling around in your garden, but they’re sentient parasites that can crawl into your brain and take complete control. They can read your thoughts and your memories and can imitate every aspect of your behavior perfectly.

Someone who is infected by a Yeerk is called a Controller, and anyone can be one. Your mother, your best friend, even the principal of your school. That’s why I can’t risk telling you my name.

But it’s not all hopeless. The same warrior that warned us about the Yeerks also gave us a way to fight back. He gave us the power to morph. We can absorb the DNA of any animal we touch, and then we can become that animal. We can fight with the strength of tigers and bears, see the world through the eyes of a hawk, become the literal fly on the wall to a conversation.

It’s a fantastic gift.

It’s also a fantastic curse.

We Animorphs are the only ones standing between the Yeerks and their victory. Six of us against millions of Yeerks. We fight to save the world. And then we lick our wounds and go home to prepare for class the next day.

Well, I don’t. I go home to my meadow. If you stay in morph for more than two hours, you’re stuck that way. I got trapped early on, during our very first trip to the Yeerk pool, which is where the Yeerks have to go every three days to feed on Kandrona rays.

Still, it could be worse.

I’ve still got my wings.

And let me tell you, there’s no greater feeling than catching a thermal and soaring miles above the ground, the air warm beneath your wings. You can ride the thermals for hours, watching life go on below you. On days we don’t have missions, and I’m not hunting, that’s where you’ll find me. I usually use the time to map out entrances to the Yeerk pool or find new Controllers, but I’d be lying if I said the main reason wasn’t just to soar.

I flew in big, lazy circles, steadily spiraling away from the city and towards the surrounding woods where I make my home. As I flew over a stream, movement caught my eye. An alien stepping out of the trees, heading for the water. It looked like a cross between a centaur and a scorpion. It was almost dainty, with the lower half looking more like the body of a deer than a horse, and the upper body being a slender torso. Its face had no mouth, and only slits for a nose, but the almond eyes were a brilliant green and above the head, another pair of eyes sat on stalks, constantly swiveling to see what was around it. Its entire body was covered in blue-tan fur. Kind of harmless until you saw the scythe blade on the tip of the tail that arced up over the body.

I banked so that I was circling over the stream.

<Hey, Ax-man!> I called down in thought-speak. It was how we were able to communicate in morph. Ax’s head craned up, and he shielded his eyes with a seven-fingered hand.

<Hello, Tobias!> he replied. <Been out hunting?>

<Nah, just coming back from the city,> I said. <Thermals were awesome today.>

<I’m about to perform my evening ritual,> he said, <if you care to join me.> I considered it, but the darkening sky told my hawk brain that I needed to find someplace to roost for the night.

<Thanks, Ax,> I said, <But maybe another time.> I circled one last time over his head and then headed on towards my territory. Ax was Elfangor’s brother. He had been aboard the Anadalites’ Dome ship when the battle that wounded Elfangor took place. The Andalite fleet was destroyed in that battle, and the Dome ship had crashed into the ocean with Ax inside. We found him later, and he’s been with us ever since. I suppose, in a weird way, that I am related to him. Elfangor had fallen in love with my mother and morphed human to be with her, but after I was conceived, the Ellimist took him away from Earth to fulfill his duty as an Andalite Prince. Or something. It was a very complicated story, and I didn’t have all of the details.

By the time I made it back to my tree, dusk was thickening, and I was hungry. There was a rabbit at the other end of the field munching away at a stalk of grass seed. Either it hadn’t seen me fly in, or it was emboldened by the fact that there hadn’t been a predator around all day. I wanted to go after it, but the hawk told me that the rabbit would bolt if I tried for it now, so I resigned myself to a hungry evening.

Sometimes I scared myself with how well I had adapted to being a hawk. When I was first stuck, Jake set up a place in his attic where I could stay, and he brought me cold hamburger to eat so I wouldn’t have to kill anything. If I were human, I would have cringed at the memory, but I was a hawk, and hawks don’t cringe. I ruffled my feathers instead. I’d rather be a predator than deal with that shame again. I had been worried that I would lose my humanity if I gave into my predatory instincts, but looking back on it now, I was foolish to think I’d ever really have my humanity back.

I lost that as soon as I was trapped. And even if I did get my powers of morphing back in some weird Ellimist-created loophole, hawk was my natural form now. I could only become human for two hours at a time.

The truth was I was more comfortable as a hawk than I had ever been as a human. Things were simple to the hawk. True, a part of Tobias-the-boy was relieved that I wouldn’t be making a meal out of that rabbit. That I wouldn’t be sinking my talons into the body, puncturing the heart, swallowing the liver while it was still warm…

Man, I was hungry. I really should have eaten more while I was out flying. I had eaten in the morning, but all of the exercise had burned off the stringy squirrel I had caught. I buried my beak in the feathers behind my shoulder and closed my eyes. Listening to the sounds of the woods, I started to doze.

I was at the Yeerk pool, straining for altitude in the dank air so I could dive down and rake my talons forward, blinding yet another Hork-Bajir. He was a seven foot tall walking lizard with blades coming out of his arms, legs, and beaked head. But his screams sounded like the screams of any other prey as they echoed in my ears, blending in with the hundreds of other screams of pain and fear and anger and despair. He stumbled back, his hands trying to staunch the flow of blood from his ruined face, only to meet his fate in Ax’s tail blade. I fight to gain air again, and the cycle is repeated. Sometimes it’s Ax that delivers the killing blow, sometimes it’s Jake’s tiger, or Rachel’s grizzly, or Cassie or Marco’s wolf. Sometimes they simply stumble into the path of a dracon beam or a hungry Taxxon. It’s all the same, all one long, unending roar of the dead and dying and barely surviving. The sound grew in volume, rose and fell in a steady rhythm, blocking out everything else.

I woke, and the noise was still there. It was night, but there was a pulsing white light coming from the center of the field. With each pulse, something seemed to be materializing. A blue box, almost nine feet tall, it looked like some kind of phone booth. I scooted closer to the trunk of the tree in which I was perched, trying to make myself as inconspicuous as possible. Not that I was particularly visible to begin with, but I had seen enough in my time as an Animorph to know that whatever this thing was, it was alien. And I didn’t know very many nice aliens.

With as resounding thud, the box settled into existence. Even in the dim light, it was bright blue, and a strip ran across the top reading “Police Box.” There were frosted windows on the doors, serving no purpose that I could tell, considering that even I couldn’t see through them.

Then the doors opened, and out stepped a tall man with messy brown hair in a blue suit and a blonde woman in a leather jacket.

“Well, Doctor,” the woman said, “where are we?” I was surprised. They looked human, although time would only tell if they were Yeerks. They also spoke English, so if they weren’t human and if they weren’t Yeerks, then they must have been on Earth for a while to pick up the language. Or maybe they had some kind of translator. None of it boded very well. Just what we needed. Another threat to deal with.

The man—the “Doctor”, I presumed—inhaled deeply, and then picked up a blade of grass and ate it.

“Earth,” he proclaimed. “Not sure what year, since time in this universe runs differently—I’ll really have to get around to calibrating what’s left of my time-sense—but I’d guess it’s the late 1900s. Somewhere in North America.” So they definitely had come from space, if landing on Earth was optional. The Doctor spun a circle and looked up at the blue box. “The question is why the TARDIS brought us here. First real trip out and you take us to America? And in the middle of the woods, no less!” He huffed, and moved as if to go back inside. “There’s nothing interesting here! Is something wrong with your delta calibrators? I knew I shouldn’t have let Tony around you during your second year; it’s the most important year for triangulation growth and he could have done any number of things to throw off the current of up-quarks in her calibration circuit.”

He continued muttering to himself as he took out a silver key and tried to unlock the door. The woman looked on in amusement when nothing happened. He tried again. The doors remained shut and the box gave an almost plaintive thrum. The Doctor harrumphed and gave up.

“Fine! Have it your way,” he said.

“What, she won’t let you in?” the woman asked, sounding like she was trying to suppress a laugh.

“Oh, don’t you start with me, Rose Tyler,” he replied, folding his arms across his chest and pouting. This time she did laugh, and she placed a hand on the blue wood and smiled.

“She’s just as temperamental as her mother.” The woman—Rose—turned back to the Doctor and held out a hand, which he took immediately, breaking into a huge grin. “Still,” she continued, “your TARDIS has never steered us away from an adventure before. How’s about a little exploring? Which way should we try first?” The Doctor stuck a finger in his mouth and pulled it out with a wet pop, holding it up in the air as if testing for wind. Then he pointed in the direction of the city.

“Thataway,” he declared, and hand-in-hand, they walked into the woods. I waited until the sound of their footsteps had faded before I took to the skies.


	2. Chapter 2 -- Jake

My name is Jake.  I’m just a teenager, a kid.  But I am also the leader of the only known guerilla resistance against the Yeerks.  I am responsible for not only the lives of my friends, but also for the freedom of the human race.  We are the only thing standing between the Yeerks and victory.  It hasn’t been easy.  And really, saying that it hasn’t been easy is a gross understatement.  I’m fairly sure that my nightmares will last me the rest of my life.  I have made more life-and-death decisions than I like to think about.  I’ve led my friends into situations I thought were certain suicide.  I’ve killed so many creatures that I’ve become numb to it. 

And I was really behind on my homework.  Which was why I was still up at one o’clock in the morning when a great horned owl tapped on my window.

<Jake, we have a problem.>  Cassie’s voice was in my head.  Thought-speak.  It was how we communicated with each other while in morph.  I stood up from my desk to open the window and let her in, my heart already beginning to beat wildly, pumping adrenaline through my veins.  She fluttered soundlessly to perch on the footboard of my bed.  Her head swiveled back and forth, listening for sounds of movement from the house below, and for good reason.

My brother Tom is a Controller.  A Yeerk lives inside his head, dictating his every move.  It was why I had first decided to use Elfangor’s gift against the Yeerks.

“What’s wrong?”  I whispered, leaving the window open in case she needed to make a quick escape. 

<Some sort of alien ship landed in Tobias’s meadow.  He and Ax are following the two people that came out.  He says they look human.>

“Controllers?” I asked.

<They’re not really acting like Controllers,> she replied, <but of course we can’t be sure.  It’s too much of a coincidence that they landed where they did.>

I nodded.  There were still several hours until morning.  I could go and check out what was going on and still make it back before I was expected to be up for school.  I began to strip to down to my morphing outfit, a pair of bike shorts and a tight t-shirt.  We had never figured out how to morph actual clothes, and things had been tense enough recently that I had taken to wearing my morphing outfit around the clock.  I was already morphing before my pants hit the ground.  A feather pattern spread across my skin as my teeth were sucked back into my gums and my lips puckered out to become a hooked beak.

<Do Rachel and Marco know yet?> I asked.

<I was going to tell them next,> Cassie replied.

<I’ll tell Marco, you tell Rachel.  Did Tobias say how he would get back to us?>

<He said he would meet us at the barn once he and Ax figured out a system.>

<Okay.  I’ll see you at the barn then.>

I was shrinking rapidly.  The feathered pattern had risen into 3D.  Last to change were my eyes.  It was like the sun had suddenly risen.  Everything was clear and perfectly focused—nothing was lost to the inky blackness of night.  Tobias flaunted the strength of his hawk eyes, but here, at night, the owls ruled.

<Man, I’ll never get tired of that,> I whispered at Cassie, only realizing I had done so when I “felt” the smile of her response.  Now fully owl, I fluttered to the windowsill and swooped out into the night.  I heard the displacement of air behind me as Cassie followed.  Then she turned towards Rachel’s house and I turned towards Marco’s.

People tend to describe the night as quiet, but with the ears of an owl, it’s really not.  I could hear the munching of a mouse on an acorn, the heartbeats of the squirrels in the trees I passed.  I could even hear the dutiful movement of earthworms through the ground below me.  It helped to calm my racing heartbeat.  The owl didn’t understand Yeerks, didn’t understand the danger of them landing a new ship we knew nothing about in a place way too close to home for comfort.  It just knew that the night was just the same as any other night.

            We couldn’t afford to overreact to this.  It this wasn’t the Yeerks—or if it was and they had landed in Tobias’s meadow on accident—and we bolted, it would only give us away.  We had only survived this long because the Yeerks thought we were renegade Andalites.  If they knew we were human, they could use our families against us, and running away would certainly tip them off.  Especially with Tom…

On the other hand, if this was a move against us “Andalite bandits,” and we didn’t react quickly enough, or strongly enough, then we were dead.  Worse than dead, we were captured.  And there was no way I could allow that to happen.  I had had a Yeerk in my brain, early on, and I didn’t want any of my friends to live through that.

Besides, if we lost, so did the human race.

I landed in a tree outside of Marco’s bedroom.

<Marco,> I said, peering through his window at the sleeping form inside.  The figure stirred, pulled the pillow over its head.  Not that it would keep out thoughtspeak.  <Marco, wake up!> I shouted.  He shot upright in bed, looking around wildly.  <It’s Jake, man.  We have a problem.>  I saw the blood drain from his face and then the spread of dark hair as he started morphing gorilla in his panic.  Hastily, I added, <It’s not that bad, not yet.  But we need to meet at the barn.  Let’s go.>

Marco had already opened his window and was changing into his morphing clothes.

<What the hell did you wake me up for like that, man?> he said angrily when he had morphed enough to use thoughtspeak.  <Jesus, don’t ever do that again unless Hork-Bajir are storming my bedroom or something.  What’s going on?>  His tone was dark, expecting the worst.  I knew he would back me up if it was important, but this was his way of telling me that I needed to let him in on everything, so he could plan ahead.  He was thinking about his dad.

Marco’s mom has disappeared when he was little, and his dad had completely fallen apart.  It was why Marco had been so reluctant to join the fight in the beginning.  That was before we found out what had really happened to his mom.  Before we found out she was still alive, but a Controller, infected with the most powerful Yeerk we knew—Visser One.

He had a reason to keep fighting now, and his dad had gotten better so as not to need constant care, but it was still a worry that he dealt with constantly.  If his dad lost him, too, Marco knew it would break him.  So I understood his wariness.

<Some kind of new spaceship landed in Tobias’s woods,> I said.  <Might be Yeerk, might not.  We don’t know.>

<What, so we’re the resident welcome party?  This couldn’t wait until morning?>

<You know it can’t, Marco.>  He fell into sullen silence.

I tried to think of what I would do when we got to the barn.  More information would certainly help, but we’d have to wait for Tobias.  There was just so much I didn’t know.  Maybe I could get the Chee to help out with reconnaissance.  But above all, we needed a plan.  We didn’t necessarily have to take action tonight, but we did need a way to find out what was going on.

Marco and I landed on the floor of the barn, sending strands of hay flying.  Cassie and Rachel were already there and demorphed.  I concentrated on becoming human again.

“Is everyone caught up?” I asked as my mouth reemerged.  Rachel and Cassie nodded.  I scrubbed my fingers through hair that was still half feathers and sighed.  “All right.  So we have an alien ship we know nothing about, out of which came two people who may or may not be Controllers, and we have no idea what they’re doing here or if they know anything about us.”  I clapped my hands together.  “Sounds about as crazy as everything else we get ourselves into.  Does anyone have anything they want to throw in?”

“I say we stay as far away as possible,” Marco said.  “If they were after us when they landed in Tobias’s meadow, then they would have captured or killed Tobias when they had the chance.” 

“Or they could just be trying to lure us all into a bigger trap,” said Rachel.  “We should strike while we still can.  Destroy their ship.  Capture them and make sure

“And how do you propose we destroy their ship, Xena?” replied Marco, rolling his eyes.  “It’s not like we have any earth movers or Dracon beams handy.”

“Besides, Rachel, they could be allies,” said Cassie, jumping in to smooth things over before Marco and Rachel could begin at a shouting match.  “If we destroy their ship, and they aren’t Controllers, we may destroy any chance of getting their help.”  There was the flutter of wings, and we all looked up to see Tobias taking his usual perch in the rafters.

<Hey guys,> he said.  <Hope I’m not too late.>

“Hey Tobias,” I said.  “You’re just in time.  What can you tell us about what is going on?”

<Not much more than what I told Cassie,> he said.  <I woke up to the sound of this ship landing.  Although landing isn’t really the right word.  More like materializing.  It’s a blue box, like a telephone booth, taller than a Hork-Bajir.  A man and a woman came out of it.  They acted as if they didn’t know where they had landed, like they were explorers or something.>

“Did they have names?” I asked.

<Well, he called her Rose, and she called him Doctor.>

“Doctor?” asked Cassie.  “Doctor who?”  Tobias gave one of his weird hawk shrugs.

<Beats me.  Far as I could tell, it was just ‘Doctor.’  Anyway, they seemed sort of disappointed when they realized this was Earth.  But then they couldn’t get back into their ship and Rose said they should explore anyway.  They started walking towards the city.  I followed them and woke up Ax on the way.  Told Cassie to get you all together.  Followed them for a little bit longer to give Ax a chance to remorph and give him the full two hours while I came back here.>

“How will you find the Ax-man again?” asked Marco.

<They made it to a motel before I left.  It looked like they were staying there for the night.  If we do lose them, we know where their ship is.  They’ll have to come back to it eventually.>

“Okay,” I said.  “Tobias, you and Ax keep on them until we get out of school tomorrow.”  I paused, looking at the old clock hanging on one of the walls.  “Today.  Whatever.  It’ll be the weekend, and we’ll be able to take our turns on watch.  In the meantime, I’ll go see Eric to see if he can help us out.”  Eric was a Chee, a member of a race of androids that produced holograms so they could live out human lives.  They were programmed against violence of any kind, but they were an invaluable source of information, since many of them had infiltrated the Yeerks.  “We’ll meet back here tomorrow.  Make your excuses.  But try to stay under the radar as much as possible.  We still don’t know if this is some kind of attack.”  Everyone nodded.  Sometimes it scared me how readily they accepted my leadership. 

Tobias flew off.  Rachel morphed and flew after him.  She was probably going to sit watch with him a while.  Then Marco clapped a hand on my shoulder, morphed, and flew off, leaving me and Cassie alone.  I sat down on a bale of hay and she sat down next to me, resting her head on my shoulder.

“It never stops, does it?” she asked.

“No,” I said.  “It never does.”


	3. Chapter 3 -- Rachel

<I think we should put off the mission,> said Marco.  <At least until it’s a dark and stormy night.>

<This morph is not adapted to withstand heavy levels of precipitation,> said Ax matter-of-factly.  Marco gave the thought-speak equivalent of a sigh. 

Four of us were perched on the telephone line across from the motel on the edge of town.  Cassie was keeping watch on our visitors’ spaceship and Jake was off visiting the Chee.  So it was just Marco, Ax, and I in crow morph, trying to blend in with the twenty or so other crows on the wire, and Tobias in his natural hawk body.  You would never be able to pick us out, except that the real crows were all making a racket, jeering at Tobias in the nearby tree, and we were mostly silent.  I gave a half-hearted caw, too tired to put much effort into it.

I had stayed up almost all night with Tobias and Ax, helping them keep watch.  We had been able to sleep in shifts, but sleeping as a bird was stressful.  The natural wary instincts combined with the knowledge that a clock is ticking down to you being stuck as an owl didn’t lend itself to a restful night.

As it was, I had slept very little during the night and had fallen asleep in two of my classes.  Thankfully, I was a good enough student normally that my teachers had been concerned and not angry.  It was easy to lie my way out of a call home.

The point being that I was tired and cranky and Marco and Ax’s banter was getting on my nerves more than usual.

<Ax-man, you have no concept of theatricality,> continued Marco.

<On the contrary, Marco,> replied Ax, <We Andalites have a great appreciation for the art form you humans know as theatre.>

<What I mean,> Marco said, <is that the atmosphere isn’t right.  Do you know what a flock of crows is called?  A murder.  We are a murder of crows on a stakeout of aliens who may or may not make our already hellish life more hellish.>

<I’m gonna murder you in a moment,> I muttered.  Marco ignored me.

<I just think the weather could be a little more dramatic,> he said.

<Don’t you think we have enough drama in our lives, Marco?> I snapped.

<This, coming from Xena, warrior princess?> Marco replied.  He laughed.  <I thought you lived for this stuff.>

<Shut up.>

<Hey, don’t bite my head off because you didn’t get enough beauty sleep.>

< _Some_ of us don’t need beauty sleep, Marco. >

<You know you think I’m gorgeous.>

<You’re short of gorgeous by about ten inches.>

<Ouch.  Ax, next time you get the chance, would you pull this knife out of my back?>

<No one has put a knife in your back, Marco,> replied Ax.  <Unless you are referring to the verbal spar Rachel just threw in your direction?  In which case, allow me to offer you some burn ointment instead.>

<Did Ax just make a joke?> I laughed.  <Ooh, he got you good, Marco.>

<Guys, we have company,> interrupted Tobias.  Below us, there was movement.  A police car had just pulled into the parking lot.  Two cops stepped out, burly with their hands resting not-quite-nonchalantly on their guns.

<Controllers?> I wondered aloud.  We knew the Yeerks had infiltrated the police force pretty heavily.

<Controllers.> Tobias confirmed grimly.  <Those are Dracon beams, not handguns.>  The two cops walked purposefully into the main office.  We watched through the glass doors as they argued with the clerk behind the counter.  Eventually, the clerk put up his hands and pointed towards one of the rooms—the room we were watching. 

<I don’t like where this is going,> I said.  <They’re not acting like Yeerks here to collect their buddies.>

<It could also be a trap,> pointed out Marco.  <And we can’t do anything without revealing ourselves and revealing our interest in these guys.>

A tall, bleary-eyed man, his brown hair sticking up in every direction, answered the door when the two Controllers knocked.  He opened his mouth to say hello when one of the Controllers grabbed him and yanked him out of the room, dragging him towards the waiting car. 

“Rose!” he yelled.  “Run!”  But he was being wrestled into a headlock by Controller One and Controller Two grabbed the blonde-haired woman as she tried to dash to save her companion.

<I really don’t like this,> I said.  I shifted restlessly on my perch.  <We can’t just sit by!>  Man, Jake was going to kill me for this.  I took to the air.

<Rachel, what are you doing?> said Tobias.

<We have to help them,> I replied.  I dove at the nearest Controller.  I hit him on the forehead, and blood welled up from the gash I opened up.  The impact jarred me, but the Controller let go of the woman with a cry, shoving her to the ground.  I struck his upheld hands, flapping madly as I clawed and pecked.

<Run!> I yelled to the woman, but she didn’t move.  Then my right wing disappeared in a flash of red light.  I screeched in pain and tumbled to the ground, only narrowly evading as Controller Two’s boot came down towards my head.

“Andalite!” said Controller One, his meaty arm still around his victim’s neck.  The man was beginning to turn blue.  In the Controller’s other hand was something that looked like a black flashlight—a Dracon beam.

“You idiot!” shouted Controller Two.  “Put that away!”  He was swatting away Marco and Ax as they continued to attack his face.  One of his hands made contact and sent a crow flying through the open door into the room.

<Ahh!> cried Marco.  There was a thud as he hit something.  I fluttered weakly on the ground, trying to avoid the Controller’s lumbering feet.  I was getting slower.  There was a crunch as he stepped on my remaining wing.  My vision went white.

When it came back, the woman was getting to her feet groggily, her blonde hair stained with red.  She must have hit her head when the Controller threw her.  It didn’t seem to be slowing her down much, though.  She reared back and kicked Controller Two square in the chest.  He staggered back and fell against the car, wheezing.

Things were getting grainy.  Blood was oozing from the stump of my missing wing.  I could no longer keep my balance.  My legs collapsed beneath me.  Marco had not come back.  Ax was nowhere to be seen.  I could hear shouts in my head, thought-speak voices that refused to resolve.  Tobias.  Where was Tobias?

I watched as the woman turned on the Controller holding her companion, but he had the Dracon beam against the man’s head.  She froze.  Slowly, she put her hands out in front of her, palms up.

“Get in the car, blondie,” he sneered.  Controller Two stirred, looking down at me with a leer.  He grabbed me.  I pecked weakly at his hand, but he just squeezed tighter and pain lanced through my body.

And then a big, hairy black fist came down onto Controller One’s head, and he crumpled.

<Nighty-night,> said Marco.  My vision swam.

“Tseer!”  Tobias came hurtling out of the air.  He raked his talons forward and the Controller holding me screamed, dropping me in favor of clutching at the mess that was once his eyes.

<We have to get out of here!> said Tobias.  <The clerk is calling the cops.>

<Way ahead of you, Tobias,> said Marco as he fished the keys out of Controller One’s pocket.  <You two,> he continued, addressing the man and woman.  <In the car please.>

The woman was helping the man to his feet.  She didn’t seem the least bit concerned that a gorilla was talking to her.  She narrowed her eyes at Marco.

“And why should we do that?”

<Because the cops will be here any second!> said Tobias.  I could hear the sirens in the background.  <And we can’t fight another battle like this.>  He fluttered down to me and grasped me in his talons.  He flapped like mad, but he couldn’t get more than a foot off the ground.  He fell out of the air.  <Stay with me Rachel!>  He tried again.  The world tilted, spun, and there was another thud as we hit the ground.  <Fuck!  Rachel, I can’t carry you like this!>

I felt more than saw soft hands pick me up from Tobias’s grasp.

“I’ve got her,” the woman’s voice said.  Then we were moving and I heard a car door close.  There was the groan of metal as Marco sat in the driver’s seat, and then a ratcheting clank as he shoved the seat back as far as it would go.  The engine roared as he floored it.

<Rachel, demorph now,> Marco said.  But his voice was distant.

<Can’t,> I murmured.  <Strangers.>

<Do it Rachel!> Tobias yelled.  <Demorph now!>

<So bossy.>  But I wasn’t sure if I actually said anything or not.

<Rachel!>  Tobias’s voice again.  What did he want?  Oh, right.  I tried to call up a mental image of myself.  It came slowly, reluctantly, a reflection in a dark room.  And finally, I felt myself begin to change.

“Ah!” said the woman.  “Doctor, what’s happening?”

“Oh, that’s just brilliant!” said the man.  “Absolutely brilliant!”

<Oh, thank god,> said Marco.  <Tobias, she’s demorphing.>

The world was becoming clearer as my wounds healed and I grew from the size of a football to the size of, well, a human.  Fingers replaced damaged feathers and audible cracks announced the reforming of bone.  An entire arm grew from the stub where my other wing had been.  The grogginess faded, and I became aware that I was lying across the laps of the man and woman we had saved. 

“Uh,” I said.  “Hi?”


	4. Chapter 4 -- Marco

There was an awkward silence as our two visitors absorbed the fact that a crow had just turned into a teenaged girl in a leotard on their laps.  A silence I immediately broke when a trash can jumped out into the sidewalk in front of me.  There was a crash as it went flying and a thud as Rachel rolled violently into the front seat. 

<Sorry,> I apologized.  Rachel grunted in response.  It was a grunt that said, “I forgive you, Marco.  Someone as attractive as you can’t be bothered with something as trivial as staying in your lane.”

Or maybe it said, “I’m going to kill you as soon as there aren’t any witnesses.”

I turned down a side street, heading towards the less-populated side of town.  A quick glance in the rearview mirror told me we weren’t being pursued, but it was only a matter of time.  The blonde woman, her arm around Rachel’s torso to keep her from falling forward as the car jerked and swerved, seemed to have the same thought process.

“We need to get rid of this car,” she said.  “They’ll be tracking it if they’re smart.”

<Yeah, I know,> I replied.  <Also, your friend there should keep his curiosity in check if he doesn’t want any broken fingers.>  The man snatched his hand away from where it had be hovering over Rachel’s knee.  Rachel looked disappointed, which meant I had been right to warn him.  <Now, who are you two?>

“This is Rose, and I’m the Doctor,” the man said brightly.  “Hello!  Thank you for helping us back there.  Would you mind telling us what’s going on?”

<The Earth is being invaded by a species of space slug that likes to crawl in your ear and take over your body.  We fight them.  Any questions?>

“Are you variforms?  I really think they might be variforms, Rose.  Although I’ve never seen one able to turn into multiple creatures before.  Perhaps it’s a genetic variation.  I suppose if you exchanged the adenosine for a lysine, it might allow for different forms.  But then they wouldn’t be nearly as stable, and where would they get their power from?  There obviously isn’t a full moon out.  And—“

“Doctor,” said Rose, “hush.”

“Right,” the Doctor muttered.  “Still rude.”

“And still not ginger,” she murmured back.  Then, aloud, “You said you fight them.  But…”  She looked down at Rachel.  “You’re just children.”

“Not anymore,” said Rachel grimly.

I made a sharp right into an abandoned lot surrounded by dilapidated houses.  Parking behind an overgrown bush, I ushered everyone out of the car and into one of the nearby houses.  Squeezing through the kitchen door was difficult, but I managed.  It was empty; a thick layer of dust lined all of the furniture.

“How’d you find this place?” asked Rachel, entering behind the Doctor and Rose.

<Tobias told me,> I replied.  <He’ll meet us here.>  The Doctor took a sprawling seat in one of the chairs surrounding the kitchen table and Rose stood behind him, hands on his shoulders.  I lumbered over to them and, before either could react, gave them each a little love tap.  The Doctor slumped over and Rose crumpled to the floor. 

<Find something to tie them up,> I told Rachel, and thankfully, she didn’t argue.  She seemed to understand that we still couldn’t trust them.  <I have to lead the Yeerks away,> I called after her as she ran from room to room.  As I spoke, I began to demorph.  Using my dwindling gorilla strength, I heaved Rose into her own chair.  Rachel came back grinning, a roll of duct tape in her hands. 

“Help me undress them,” I said when my human mouth had reformed.  Rachel looked at me quizzically.

“Uh, why?”

“Because I need to give the Yeerks something to chase.”

She didn’t look like she liked the idea, but she helped me strip them down to their underclothes and tape them to their chairs.  Tobias flew in through the open door just as we finished.

<The cops are closing in,> he said.  <Uh, Marco, what are you doing?>  I had placed my hand on the Doctor’s shoulder, concentrating.

“I’m acquiring him, what does it look like I’m doing?”

<And what is Rachel doing?>

“Well, I can’t let him go alone.  The Yeerks are after both of these guys.  If we just send out one, they’ll keep looking for her.”

<Then let me do that,> protested Tobias, fluttering from his perch on an empty chair to the table.

“I don’t think you’re mentally prepared to morph a woman, Tobias,” replied Rachel.

<That has nothing to do with it!  God, Rachel, grow up.  You almost died today!>

“We almost die every day, so what?”

Tobias looked at her sharply.  Even I felt uncomfortable with the way his intense hawk gaze bored into her.  There was a long silence that told me he was speaking to her privately.  Rachel grimaced and shook her head.

<Fine,> said Tobias.  <I’ll keep watch from outside.>  Turning, he flew back outside.

“Right then,” I said.  “Here we go.”  I stepped away from the table and began to morph.  My skin lightened and freckles peppered my body, starting on my right hand and spreading up my arm, across my chest, and down the other.  My short dark hair turned brown and grew into a wild mess.  Then I grew a good foot and a half.  Although it wasn’t growing so much as stretching, since my body appeared to be reappropriating my existing mass into height.

Meanwhile, Rachel was shrinking and gaining mass.  Her hair changed from blonde to brown in a wave.

“Uh, Rachel,” I said, my voice squeaking as my vocal chords changed.  “You may want to try to keep your hair.  Looks like she’s not a natural blonde.”

“Crap,” she said, and closed her eyes to focus.  Slowly, her hair seemed to reach a compromise at a dirty blonde.

I reached for the clothes we had taken off of the Doctor and Rose once I felt I had stopped changing, carefully averting my eyes as Rachel did, too.  The whole not-morphing-clothes thing got really uncomfortable sometimes. 

“That’s a good look for you, Marco,” said Rachel, apparently enjoying my embarrassment. “Slim and a little bit foxy.”

“Oh shut up, Rachel,” I said as I put on my pants.

Then another consciousness welled up beneath mine.  And it wasn’t human.

There was a sensation of splitting and everything fractured, like looking into a broken mirror.  A thousand different Marcos stumbled as they tried to put on pants that weren’t theirs.  One Marco gripped the table for support.  Another lost his balance and crashed to the floor, his foot caught in his pant leg.  Still another died in a hail of Dracon fire as Hork-Bajir stormed the house.

My mind was on fire.  I saw everything and nothing.  The kitchen came to life as dust cleared and a family bustled about, making dinner.  Simultaneously, the house collapsed into rubble as a wrecking ball crashed through a wall.

Then everything snapped back and I was holding onto the table so tightly that my knuckles were white.  Rachel was looking at me with concern.

“Marco, are you okay?” she asked with Rose’s voice.

“Uh, yeah,” I said, warily loosening my grip.  I could no longer see the other Marcos, but I could sense them.  If I concentrated, I could feel the yawning blackness of a reality in which I only existed as scattered atoms in the air.  “You guys didn’t see that?”

“See what?”  Rachel was tense, glancing around for a threat.  (In another reality, she lunges at a Hork-Bajir with a kitchen knife and dies fighting.)

“Nevermind.  That was some freaky Ellimist shit,” I muttered, pulling on my borrowed shirt, trying to ignore the way my brain stretched.  I glanced at the Doctor, thought better of completely brushing it off.  “I don’t think he’s human,” I said.  “Something’s weird.”  I shook myself, forcing a grin.  “But it’s good now.  I’ve got it under control.  Come on, let’s give those Yeerks a chase to remember.”

Rachel smiled.  “Let’s do it.”

I felt probabilities rearrange in my head. 

“Yep,” I said.  “It’s official.  We’re insane.”


	5. Chapter 5 -- Marco

“Jake is going to be so pissed,” said Rachel.  Her hand was pressed up against the roof of the car as I punched it around a corner.  She didn’t normally care about what Jake would think in these kind of situations, but then, judging by her current grin, she wasn’t too concerned right now, either.  I had adjusted my seat to fit my now-longer legs, and was really quite amazed at how much easier driving was when you could reach everything properly. 

As a gorilla, the steering wheel was always too close and the pedals a little too far away.  Not to mention my bulk didn’t fit in the seat.  But now, my turns weren’t restricted by my hairy belly, and I could brake without having to use my left foot.

You know, sometimes, I think about how weird my life is.  I’d be bothered by it, but I can’t remember what normal is anymore.

We zoomed past a line of police cars with their lights on, and heard tires squealing as they turned to follow us.

“Hahaha, got ‘em!” cried Rachel, looking through the rear windshield as the cars fishtailed. 

“Now to put my Gran Turismo skills to the test,” I muttered, unable to get caught up in Rachel’s high.  There’s something about seeing every possible death scenario play out in your head that has a sobering effect.

“What skills?” retorted Rachel.  “I’ve only seen you go in circles.”

“Shut up.  That was one time.”

The Controllers were hot on our tail now.  I barely had a lead, and we were getting out of the quieter neighborhoods and into the busier part of town, which meant that I wasn’t just dodging suicidal trash cans anymore.  I was dodging other cars.  I tried not to feel too guilty as I clipped rearview mirrors and scraped paint.

The situation wasn’t helped by the fact that I kept getting glimpses of alternate timelines.  Most of them did not end well.  I was engulfed in the blaring of sirens and horns and the screeching and crunch of metal that never occurred. 

“Marco, you’re going to kill us!” Rachel was yelling in my ear.  “Get on the interstate!”

I jerked a right and shot across a red light onto the ramp.  There was a very real crash as drivers swerved to get out of my way.  Then I was flying down the highway…or I would have been had I not overlooked one teensy little detail.  Traffic.  There was a wall of red lights in front of us.

“Aw, crap,” I said.  And then I did something very stupid.  I kept my foot on the accelerator and decided to drive on the shoulder.  Which kept us moving, but also meant that I had a wall of cars on my right and a wall of concrete death on my left. 

“Bad idea!  Very bad idea!”

“Just keep going!” screamed Rachel, but her knuckles were white on the dashboard.  I glanced down at the speedometer and instantly decided not to look at it again.  Instead, I flicked on the police siren.  And let me tell you, when people are sitting on the interstate and see a police car with its lights on barreling down the shoulder going ninety, they move.  Or, they move as much as they can.  It wasn’t much, but those precious inches were all I had.  My eyes were glued to the road in front of me as I tried to keep us within our little band of safety.

“Uh, Marco?”  Her voice was the kind of forced calm I had heard her use before.  Usually, it was when about fifty more Hork-Bajir reinforcements had poured in.

“Yes, Rachel.”

“I have bad news.”

“Worse than we’re going to die in a flaming ball of death and take a bunch of innocent people with us?”

“Yes.”

“They’re still following us, aren’t they?”

“Yep.”

“Well, isn’t that just great.  How close are they?”

“We’ve still got a while.”

“All righty then.”

Ahead of us, I could see the traffic thinning out.  If I could just make it there, we could get off the interstate and go hide somewhere.  Except between us and freedom, there was one of those “For Official Use Only” u-turn areas.  With a cop car sitting in it.  And the front of his car sticking out into the shoulder. 

Instinctively, I slammed on the brakes.  We flew forward, pressed against our seatbelts.  Then we hit the other car with a crunch.  The airbags deployed.  There was a loud crack as I hit my head on the window.  The siren kept wailing.  The noise didn’t agree with the headache I had swelling up. 

“Ugh,” I groaned.  I looked through the windshield at the other car.  It was not in good shape.  The driver didn’t seem to be moving.

“Rachel?” I asked.

“Unh?” she sounded more dazed than I did.

“I think we should run.”

But she was already fumbling with her seatbelt.  It took her a few tries, but when I heard the click, I figured she would be okay, so I started working at mine.  It was way more difficult than they make it seem in the movies, mostly because the airbag kept getting in the way, but also because my hands were shaking so badly I could barely push the button.  Getting the door open also required a great deal of motor control that I didn’t have.  Rachel had gotten hers open, though, so I climbed over the center console to get out that way. 

The movement upset my skewed balance.  The world tilted and I didn’t step out of the car so much as fall out.  I watched the gathering red-and-blue lights spin for a minute, taking comfort in the heat of the asphalt and trying to keep down my nausea.  I failed and threw up next to Rachel’s feet.

“Remind me to kill you later for throwing up on me,” replied Rachel, using her too-calm voice again. 

“You’re being awfully optimistic,” I slurred.  “You’re assuming we’ll be alive later.”  I heard her chuckle.  Slowly, I sat up.

“Oh, fuck,” I said.

“Yep,” said Rachel.  Then she helped me to my feet, so I could better face the twenty or so policemen pointing guns at us.

“I thought you said we had a while?”

“I lied.  I thought you said you had skills?”

“Hey!  I’d like to see you do better.”

“I could do better than you with my eyes closed.”

“I said get on the ground!” Oh, right.  Policemen with guns.  I gingerly put my hands in the air and started lowering myself down to my knees.  Only, the distance was longer than I was expecting, considering I was a good foot taller than usual, so I faltered and fell the rest of the way.  Well, they had said to get on the ground.

Rachel rolled her eyes at me, but she was kneeling, too.

“Jesus, why do I even go out in public with you?” she asked in a whisper, barely moving her mouth.  And in that moment, I was glad that Rachel was with me, out of everyone.  Because I was terrified.  Wide-eyed, sweating, and shaking like a leaf terrified.  But Rachel was the fiercest out of all of us.  There was a part of me that believed that she couldn’t die.  She would look the Grim Reaper right in the face and tell him to go to hell. 

And so, instead of crying as they put me in handcuffs and read me my rights, I borrowed some of Rachel’s strength, laughed, and said, “Because you obviously can’t resist my boyish charm and superior driving skills.”


	6. Chapter 6 -- Cassie

There are some really cool things about being an Animorph: knowing the joy of a dolphin rocketing through the water, feeling the power in the muscles of a wolf running through the forest, seeing for the first time the color of the world through the eyes of a butterfly after an eternity of darkness.  And yet, for every wonderful thing I get to see and hear and feel, there are two steeped in horror and pain and fear. 

There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish Elfangor had chosen someone else, that I hadn’t walked through the construction site that night.  Usually, I feel guilty in those moments of weakness, because it wasn’t as if he had a choice.  We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the Andalite prince was grasping at whatever small chance he could give the human race.  I feel guilty because if not us, then who?  Without us, there would be no one to stop the Yeerks.

But as I looked down at my friends—wearing bodies that were not their own—with their faces pressed into the hot pavement of the highway, their arms wrested behind their backs and cuffed together by policemen who were not just policemen, I didn’t feel guilty for wishing for a different life.  I just wanted the nightmare to end.

I was an osprey soaring about a mile above them, and there was nothing I could do.  There was nowhere for me to morph, and even if I did, there was nothing I could do against so many men with guns.  The Controllers couldn’t outright shoot Marco and Rachel with so many witnesses in the traffic around them, but they would shoot a rogue wolf in a heartbeat.

How had two people and a strange blue box upended everything so quickly?  We hadn’t been doing great—we were six against hundreds, even thousands—and we had been losing ground, but we were managing.  Now we were scattered, two of us captured, with no information about what was going on.

<Rachel?  Marco?> I called down to my friends, hoping they could hear me.  I saw Rachel’s shoulder’s tense and she resisted the hand of an officer pulling her to her feet.  <Rachel, it’s me!  It’s Cassie!> Thankfully, she seemed to shake off her surprise and let herself be manhandled towards a cruiser. 

<Cassie?> Marco’s voice filled my head.  <Can you hear me?>

<Yes!> I answered, relieved.  We hadn’t really tested out the ability to use thought-speak when we morphed humans.  Some of my panic was easing.  I could talk to them, at least.

<How did you find us?> Rachel asked, apparently taking her cue from Marco.  <I thought you were watching the box.>

<I was.  Hork-Bajir came.>

<They took it?> asked Marco.

<They tried.  It was the weirdest thing.  They couldn’t move it at all.  It was like it weighed tons.  When they couldn’t move it, they set up a guard.>

<Why did you leave, then?> There was a tone of disapproval in Marco’s voice.  Rachel sent him a dirty look over the hood of the car the Controllers were pushing them into.

<Because they started shooting at everything that moved, and I didn’t really want to end up as chicken tenders,> I answered.  <I went to that rendezvous point Tobias set up.  I found him there—he’s pissed at you by the way—and he told me what had happened.  Then I just followed the sirens.>

<Rendezvous point?> I could practically hear Marco rolling his eyes.  <You’ve been spending too much time with Jake, Cass.>

The cars were starting to pull away.  I flapped to keep up, angling into a dive to pick up speed.  This wasn’t going to last for long, and I couldn’t just meet them at the precinct.  These weren’t real police officers, they were Controllers.  They may not know that the brown haired man and his blonde friend in their car were two of the “Andalite bandits” who had been a thorn in their side for so long, but they did know that these were two people who had information they wanted.  The fact that Controllers had shown up at the motel to take the Doctor and Rose pointed to there already being Yeerks set aside for them.  There was nothing to stop them from simply infesting Marco and Rachel.

Except me.

<Where are they taking you guys?> I called down.  <Do you have any idea?>

<I don’t know,> said Rachel.  <But if they give us even a second alone, I’m gonna take down as many of them as I can.>

<Right,> said Marco.  <Well, while Rachel prepares for the worst case scenario—which is also currently the most likely scenario—I think I overheard one of these goons talking about the Yeerk Pool.  And Visser Three.> 

I said a word that made Rachel laugh.

<This is very not good,> I said.  My wings were beginning to burn from strain.  I had already lost most of my altitude.  The cars were getting away from me.

<I know,> said Marco.  <But listen.  Go talk to the Doctor and Rose.  I think they might have a way out of this.>

<I can’t leave you alone!>  I flapped harder, trying to disprove what the osprey’s mind was telling me—that it was a hopeless case.

<You have to,> said Marco.  He told me one time, after I had gotten spitting mad at him, how he could be so ruthless.  He said it was like seeing the perfect line from A to B.  All the little details fall away, they don’t matter, and there is only that line.  But everything that is on that line has to happen, or you can’t get to B.  I had said that the ends don’t always justify the means.  He just smiled and said that in this war, they do.  I heard that in his voice now.  The conviction that the line was there.  But this time it wouldn’t be him calling the shots.  It would be me. 

I stopped flapping and let the cruisers go.  Then I turned around and headed back from whence I came.


	7. Chapter 7 -- Ax

Prince Jake was not happy.  Granted, not many princes would be, facing the reason why two of their soldiers had been captured by the enemy.  He gripped the back of the kitchen chair, his eyes closed, breathing deeply and deliberately in the traditional human way to calm his anger.  Cassie stood next to him, her hand out to touch him, but hovering over his fist.  I didn’t understand the complex human rules for touching one another—it seemed to be an unspoken part of their culture—but it seemed to me that she was afraid to break Prince Jake’s carefully held composure.

“We need their help,” said Cassie, repeating the conclusion to her explanation of what had happened to Marco and Rachel.  She tilted her head towards the Doctor and Rose—our prisoners—where they were still unconscious and tied to their chairs, but her eyes never left Prince Jake’s face.  Tobias fluttered in through the open door and landed on the back of the remaining chair.

<Still clear,> he reported.  His thought-speak was tight, controlled.  He had not taken the news about Rachel well.  His head swiveled to look at me where I stood awkwardly between Prince Jake and the prisoners.  I had demorphed to my natural form almost as soon as I and Prince Jake had arrived, feeling the need for the protection of my tail blade.

<Thank you, Tobias,> I said when it became apparent that Prince Jake was not going to say anything.  His silence was beginning to make me nervous.  If a prince could not put away his feelings and focus on the solution to the problems he faced, he could not lead.  My faith in Prince Jake and my love for him were unshakeable, but I had also seen his shoulders grow heavy as our war waged on.  I decided to ease the weight.

<Prince Jake,> I said, <perhaps we should awaken our prisoners?>

He opened his eyes, glancing at me before flicking them to meet Cassie’s gaze.  Sometimes I wonder at my friends’ insistence that they cannot use thought-speak when not in morph.  Volumes seemed to be spoken between Prince Jake and Cassie in mere moments.  Cassie’s hand finally connected to his and she stroked the back of it.  I looked away.

“Ye—“  His voice wavered.  He cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders back, once more assuming the mantle of his responsibility.  I felt my own tense body relax.  “Yes, Ax,” he continued.  “Let’s wake them and figure out why the hell they’re here.”

I nodded.  Then I placed the very tip of my tail blade between Rose’s eyes and pressed.  At the same time, I let a stream of bright pictures and high-pitched sounds flow from my mind into hers.  Her eyes snapped open and she reared back.  Her chair tipped backwards and she lost balance, crashing to the floor.

“Ahhh!  What the hell?  What happened?”

I ignored her and repeated the procedure with the Doctor.  He reacted in much the same way, although he managed to keep his chair upright.  Cassie and Prince Jake helped to straighten Rose as the Doctor grimaced.

“Blimey, that’ll leave a bad taste in your skull.  What did you have to go and do that for?”  There was a beat, and then he appeared to realize who had woken him.  “Oh, look at you!  You’re beautiful!”  He somehow managed to scoot his chair closer to peer up at me. 

“I take it you’re an Andalite, then?” asked Rose, finally righted and attempting to shake her hair out of her face.  I blinked at her and turned a stalk eye to look at Prince Jake, who had resumed his place behind me.  He nodded.

<Yes,> I replied stiffly.  I shifted uncomfortably as the Doctor leaned in even closer.  He appeared to be trying to sniff my fur.  Cassie was trying and failing to keep a straight face.

“Doctor!” Rose hissed.  “What.  Are.  You.  Doing?”  The Doctor shifted back a fraction, chastised.

“Where are you from, again?” he asked.  “I don’t remember meeting one of you before.  And trust me, I’d remember if I had.  Great at remembering things, I am.”  He paused.  “Well, I am when the timelines don’t get eaten and rewritten but really that’s another story for another day.  Planet?  Galaxy?”

<My home planet is in the distal arm of Cassiopeia.>

“Ah.  Right.  Well.  That would explain that.”  The Doctor paled a fraction and he scooted his chair back so he was next to Rose again.  Prince Jake took the opportunity to step forward.

“You appear to have us at a disadvantage,” said Prince Jake.  “You know much more about us than we do about you.”

“There’s nothing to say,” said Rose, glaring up at him.  As I watched, her eyes flicked around the room—looking for a way out, I surmised.  “We’re just passing through, really.  Now would you please untie us?”  Prince Jake’s jaw clenched.

“Because of you, two of my friends were captured and we have no way to get them back.  I have not gotten us through this war just to have a couple of travelers ‘just passing through’ get my friends killed!  So no, I won’t untie you!  Not until you explain what the _fuck_ you’re doing here!”

Rose’s glare softened, but her mouth remained in a grim line.

“I’m sorry about your friends, I really am, but what do you expect us to do?”

“We know about your spaceship,” said Cassie. 

“ _Spaceship_?” the Doctor spluttered.  He turned to look incredulously at Rose.  “They think the TARDIS is a simple _spaceship_?”

<TARDIS?> asked Tobias.  Rose looked at the Doctor with one eyebrow raised.  He maintained his look of shock and—hurt?  After a moment, she rolled her eyes and sighed.

“Time And Relative Dimension In Space,” she said, clearly meaning that to explain everything.  “She’s much more than just a spaceship.”

<She’s alive, isn’t she?> replied Tobias.  I was caught up in a different detail.

<Are you implying that your ship travels in time?>

“Yes,” said the Doctor, looking at Tobias.  “Well, no.  Well, kind of.  Not in the way you think of ‘alive’.”

“And yes,” said Rose, meeting my main eyes, “she does.”

I took a step back.

<That’s impossible,> I said.  Tobias turned to look at me.  So did Cassie and Prince Jake.

<Uh, Ax-man,> said Tobias.  <We’ve morphed _dinosaurs_ , and you’re arguing about the possibility of time travel?>

My tail lowered a bit and I flexed my fingers.

<Well, impossible without a Sario Rip,> I conceded.  <But those instances weren’t exactly predictable events.>  I sniffed.  <The idea that one could travel through time like one travels through space is preposterous.>

The Doctor rolled his eyes.  Rose coughed, although it sounded suspiciously like a snort.

“Look,” said the Doctor, “whether you believe it or not, it’s true.  Just because your species her faster-than-light travel doesn’t mean you know everything.”  I bristled, but the Doctor had turned his gaze to Prince Jake.  “I am sorry for your friends.  I truly am.  But—“

“You can’t help,” Prince Jake finished.  For the briefest of moments, I saw the light go out of him, saw him lose his will to fight, saw the child he was—we all were—underneath.  All of my breath left me.

Then I blinked, and Prince Jake was back.

“Actually,” said the Doctor, his voice soft, “If I’m clever—and I am very clever—I think there may be a way to get your friends back.”

He told us.

“That…could work,” said Cassie after a moment.  Prince Jake turned to me, and I set about cutting the Doctor and Rose’s bonds.

“Oh, that’s better,” said the Doctor, rubbing his arms where the ropes had dug into them.  Then he clapped his hands together.  “Now, take us to the TARDIS.”


	8. Chapter 8 -- Tobias

I fluttered from branch to branch above our odd group as we trudges through the woods.  It had been a little nerve-wracking, getting the Doctor and Rose from the house to the national park, but we managed.  Now, Jake was leading and Ax was bringing up the rear.  Cassie walked next to the Doctor and Rose, and I had to admire her patience.  The Doctor had not stopped talking since we set out.  At first he has asked questions about the Yeerk invasion.  Now he was yammering on and on about far off worlds and galaxies, about adventures and misadventures, and about meeting historical figures. 

Listening to him, I found myself almost believing it.  Almost.  It was all well and good to say you had a ship that could travel anywhere in time and space—and it wasn’t like I hadn’t had my fair share of weird—but I didn’t want to think that any of it was true.  It made me want to scream.  They just popped in and out of worlds, without a care.  Oh, there’s a problem?  Let me just patch that up and be on my way.

Meanwhile, we were stuck here, risking our lives day after day.  Living the nightmare.  Losing limbs and blood and sanity just to demorph and go back to pretending it never happened, lest someone find out who we are.  Or, in my case, to go back to my tree and sink my talons into a mouse or rabbit so I can keep on living, sleeping with one eye open in case some bigger predator comes along.

They laughed and told stories and shared inside jokes, and meanwhile Rachel was…

I flapped hard and broke through the treeline, needing air, needing sky.  I heard down below me the sound of confusion.

<Tobias?> Ax called.  <Prince Jake would like to know what is wrong.>

<Nothing’s wrong, Ax,> I lied.  <I’m just checking ahead.>  We weren’t far from my clearing.  I would go, see what we were dealing with, and get my emotions under control before I morphed Hork-Bajir and gave the Doctor something to worry about.

I let the hawk take me higher, out of sight of anything on the ground.  I caught a passing thermal and let it do the work for me.  The exercise of flying was good to clear your head, but I needed all my energy if we were going to have to fight.

As I circled closer to the clearing, I tried to tell myself that it wasn’t the Doctor’s fault that Rachel was captured.  From the way they talked about their adventures, the Doctor and Rose had probably not even meant to end up here.  It was just an accident, a stroke of bad luck.

The thought did not make me feel any better.

Before I could follow that train of thought any further, my clearing came into view.  Bright blue and very much out of place, the Doctor’s spaceship stood in the center of the clearing.

So did eight Hork-Bajir. 

We had gotten much better at fighting since Elfangor first gave us the power to morph.  The long months and years of war had hardened us and honed out skills to a fine point.

But eight to four?

Without Rachel?

I sped back to the group, using my descent to give me speed.  But either they were moving faster than I thought, or I had been gone much longer than anticipated, because I couldn’t find them.  I cursed and flew low over the trees, flapping like mad.

It took several passes before I finally saw them up ahead.

They were maybe fifty yards from a Hork-Bajir scout.

<Guys!> I shouted.  <Stop!>  Jake, Cassie, and Ax froze.  Cassie threw out an arm to stop the Doctor and Rose.  Jake fell into a crouch, head swiveling to look for the threat.  I could already see orange fur spreading over his body.  Ax took a fighting stance ahead of Jake, his tail arching over his head, at the ready.

<Hork-Bajir fifty yards ahead of you, Jake,> I said.  <Eight more in the clearing.>

He fell forward onto all fours as a long tail sprouted behind him.  Cassie’s mouth was beginning to stretch into a wolf’s muzzle.

<Keep him off of us,> Jake called up to me as I shot past.

<Got it,> I replied.  I pulled my wings in tight to my body and plummeted through the trees, aiming straight for the Hork-Bajir’s face.  It had just enough time to shout, “Andalite!” before my talons raked forward and found purchase in its eyes.

It screamed in pain.  I heard answering cries of alarm from the Hork-Bajir in the clearing.  The injured Hork-Bajir clawed at the air with one hand, the other clutching its ruined face.  One of its wrist blades shaved half an inch off of my tail feathers, but then I was gaining altitude and out of reach. 

<There goes the element of surprise,> I said.  I got above the treeline just long enough to get a glimpse of the Hork-Bajir in my clearing, gesturing animatedly to the woods, before one of them spotted me and fired its Dracon beam.  I dodged it—barely—and dropped back below the branches, landing in a tree above my friends.  <Yep, they definitely know we’re here.  What’s the plan, Jake?>

The injured Hork-Bajir was still stumbling around, moving towards Ax.  Luckily for it, Ax was feeling particularly merciful.  He ended its pain by quickly separating its head from its body.  The woods were quiet except for the not-quite-distant sounds of the Hork-Bajir arming themselves in the clearing, and for the crunch of bones as Jake and Cassie finished morphing.

“You killed it.”  Rose’s voice was quiet, soft.  I looked over at her and the Doctor for the first time since spotting the group.  Rose looked horrified, and also sad.  She walked over to the Hork-Bajir’s still-twitching body and crouched warily next to it, reaching out a hand as if to touch it.  She yanked it back when it gave one last violent jerk—nearly taking her hand off with a wrist blade—and then laid still.

“You didn’t need to do that,” said the Doctor.  He looked thunderous.  “It was completely defenseless!”  He turned to Cassie.  “You said the Hork-Bajir were a peaceful people!”

<They are,> said Cassie, and I could practically feel the weight of her guilt dripping off of her words.  <But it’s kinder to kill them.  Any Hork-Bajir left incapacitated are killed anyway by the Yeerks.>

“But you can’t just go around killing people!”  His voice was getting louder, like he was whipping himself into a proper tirade.  “In self-defense, as a last resort, is one thing.  But this—this is wrong.  I won’t help you if this is how you’re resisting the Yeerks.”  He opened his mouth to continue, but an orange-and-black blur tackled him to the ground.  Four hundred pounds of Siberian tiger pinned the Doctor in the time it took to blink.

<With all due respect, Doctor,> said Jake.  <Shut.  Up.>  A deep, resonating growl cut off the Doctor when he tried to speak again.  <No.  You don’t get to speak here.  This is our war.  We’ve been fighting it for a long time, now, and we’ve done what we have had to do to keep fighting it.  It is six of us against an entire Yeerk army, and we don’t have the luxury of keeping a pristine morality.>  His voice took on a smooth, lecturing tone.

<Now, what we’re going to do is this.  Tobias is going to morph Andalite.  You’ve been practicing with Ax, right?>

<Right,> I replied, fluttering down to the ground and concentrating on Ax’s DNA floating around inside me.

<Good,> continued Jake.  <Tobias is going to morph Andalite.  We’ll wait long enough for the Hork-Bajir in the clearing to get properly worried and send a couple into the trees to look for us.  Then we are going to kill whoever they send.  At that point, they won’t send any more, and we’ll have to attack them directly.  Six to four isn’t good odds, but it’s better than eight.

<We will attack them, and we will kill all of them.  You and Rose will wait here in the woods where it is safer.  Do you understand the plan, Doctor?>

The Doctor said nothing.  He just glared at Jake.  Jake bared his teeth and snarled a growl that I had seen make Controllers wet their pants.

<I said, “Do you understand the plan, Doctor?”>

“Yes.”  The Doctor clipped out the word.

<Good,> said Jake, and he released him.  He turned to Rose.  <Do you understand the plan?>  She nodded and moved to the Doctor’s side to help him up.  <Good.>

The last couple inches of my tail finished growing just as Jake looked to Ax, Cassie, and me. 

<Ready?> he asked.

<We’d better be,> I said, one stalk eye turned to watch the woods between us and the clearing.  <Looks like they’ve finished drawing straws to see who gets to come find us.>  Two Hork-Bajir were just visible through the trees.


	9. Chapter 9 -- Jake

The two Hork-Bajir spotted us and began to shout, alerting the others in the clearing.  Then they started backing away.

<Cassie,> I said.  <Before the others come.  Ax and Tobias, on backup.>  I sprinted at the Hork-Bajir and Cassie fell in at my flank.  The Controllers stopped retreating and braced themselves.  It was like running towards the blades of a blender, but this was almost routine now.  On my next exhale, I roared.  A Siberian tiger’s roar can be heard for two miles.  The Hork-Bajir were about six feet away.  They flinched.  Not by much, and they recovered quickly, but in that moment, I leapt.

My front paws hit the foremost Hork-Bajir square in the shoulders.  My head snapped forward and my jaws closed around its throat.  I felt my teeth sink into its flesh, rending muscle and sinew.  There was a satisfying crunch as I crushed its windpipe.

I felt a burning in my left side as the Hork-Bajir crumpled beneath my weight—its dying throes has opened up a gash across my ribs.  I ignored it and jumped off my victim as Cassie finished hamstringing hers. 

I barked quick orders and the four of us scattered into the trees.  Cassie and I faded into the deepening shadows, circling around to the backs of the remaining six Hork-Bajir, who had just entered the forest ahead of us in a tight-knit group.  Ax and Tobias stood out more, their blue fur easy targets among all the green and brown.  The Hork-Bajir raised their Dracon beams and began firing.  One of Tobias’s stalk eyes disappeared, and a black mark sizzled across Ax’s shoulder, removing a neat half-circle of muscle.  Ax caught himself from stumbling and galloped at the nearest Hork-Bajir, tail raised.  Tobias seemed to be having a harder time adjusting to the loss of sight, and the Controller closest to him took advantage, removing several of Tobias’s fingers when he raised his hands in a defense reflex.

One of the other Hork-Bajir shouted and began shooting at a grey blur moving through the trees—Cassie.  Unluckily for it, it was at the rear of the pack, and I had finished circling into position.

I sprung out of the shadows and tackled it from behind, opening four-inch gouges down the length of its back with my claws.  My teeth found purchase in the nape of its neck.  There was a pop, and the Hork-Bajir went limp. 

Suddenly, my right hind leg went numb as another Hork-Bajir buried its wrist blade in my hip.  I snarled and tried to turn on it, but it was too close and my jaws caught only air.  It yanked, opening my thigh and rendering my leg useless.  Warm blood soaked my fur.  As I limped backwards to gather myself for a counterattack, Cassie—with a bloody snout and a missing ear—pounced and tore out my attacker’s throat.  Four of eight down.

Looking to the rest of the Hork-Bajir, one was groaning on the floor, trying to staunch the flow of green-red blood from his ruined legs.  Another was facing off against Tobias, who appeared to have recovered from his earlier faltering and was gaining the upper hand.  The final two had ganged up on Ax, whose chest was oozing blood even as he blocked blow after blow, his tail blade a blur. 

Balancing as well as I could on three legs, I leapt on one of the Hork-Bajir fighting Ax.  It stumbled and missed its next strike, but it managed to twist to face me as we fell.  One of its feet came up under me and fire erupted in my abdomen.  I felt the Hork-Bajir kick, and my insides spilled out across its legs.  Unable to separate myself from its tearing claws, and with my vision narrowing to a small point, I clubbed its head with a paw.  The first hit dazed it, giving me enough time to rear back farther.  The second hit cracked its skull.

The Hork-Bajir twitched and jerked for several moments, each movement bringing on a new wave of pain.  Then, thankfully, it lay still.  There was a thud as Ax took the head off of his opponent and its body collapsed to the ground.  I could hear Cassie growling as she helped Tobias take down his Hork-Bajir.  A gurgling signaled the end of its life.  I was content to lay atop the Controller I had brained, letting the world spin around me.

<Jake?> Cassie’s voice cut through the fog.  I mumbled something in response.  I was warm and comfortable and sinking…<Oh my god, Jake, demorph now!>  Her panic cleared my head, and I opened my eyes.  Cassie’s yellow eyes were right in front of my own.  She licked my nose.  <Now, Jake!  Demorph!>

<Fine,> I said.  I tried to concentrate on my image of myself, but it was so hard to concentrate on anything.  It reminded me of when I was little, and my dad had taken Tom and me to the beach.  Tom showed me how to catch the little fish in the surf, but they kept slipping through my fingers.  I started crying, because I couldn’t do it, but then Tom caught one and carefully put it in my hands.  It wriggled helplessly as the water trickled out.

“You gotta put it back in the ocean, Jake,” Tom had said.  “Or it’ll die.”

<Jake!>

The Yeerk in my hands wriggled helplessly as the grey sludge trickled out from between my fingers. 

“You gotta put it back in my head, Jake,” said Tom.  “Or it’ll die.”

<That’s it, Jake.  You can do it.  Come on.>  Cassie was talking to me, coaxing me through my morph.  I was demorphing.  My head was clearing. 

I rolled onto my back, off of the Hork-Bajir, using a paw that was rapidly becoming a hand to pile my intestines back into my stomach.  I could feel them rearranging as the skin grew new and whole back over my torso.

This time, when I opened my eyes, Cassie’s eyes were brown. 

“Thanks,” I said.  She smiled a tight-lipped smile.  I lifted one of the corners of my mouth in response.  Behind her, Ax was morphing to human and back to get rid of his wounds.  Tobias was already up in one of the trees, scanning the area.  I sat up slowly, now completely back to human.  “Where are the Doctor and Rose?”

“We’re here.”  Rose’s voice came from behind me.  She was standing next to the Doctor, who was leaning over the body of the Hork-Bajir that had bled out after Cassie attacked it.  “Are you all right?”

Cassie helped me stand up.  I felt exhausted, but otherwise I was completely healed.

“I’m fine.  What is he doing?”  I gestured to the Doctor.

“I’m trying to learn more about these people you slaughtered,” replied the Doctor in clipped tones.

“Doctor, they were almost killed trying to protect us,” Rose chastised.

“I never asked them to protect us.”  He sniffed.  “Their method of ‘protection’ sits well with you, does it, Rose?”

“Of course not,” she said, glancing up at us.  I crossed my arms.  “But they’re kids, Doctor.  Just kids.  And they’ve been fighting this war alone.”

“That isn’t an excuse!”

“They’ve done what they’ve had to do.  I can’t imagine they’re too different than you were, during the Time War.”

The Doctor was quiet, looking down at the Hork-Bajir.  Then his eyes widened and he pointed.

“What is that?”

A grey mass was beginning to creep out of the Hork-Bajir’s ear.

<The Yeerk is trying to make a run for it,> said Tobias.  <Stupid thing.  It’s not like it’ll get far.>

We all watched in silence as, little by little, the Yeerk emerged.  When it finally plopped onto the forest floor, the Doctor reached down and picked it up.  It rested, slimy and fat and five inches long, in the palm of his hand.

“They’re blind, deaf, and completely helpless without their hosts,” said Cassie.  “Most of them just want to escape that so badly, they’ll do anything.”

The Doctor looked up at me, eyes burning with rage.  I glared right back.

Then he said, “Come on.  We have to go rescue your friends.”  He turned away, the Yeerk still in his hand, and as he walked toward the clearing I heard him mutter, “And I have to end this war.”

That was a statement I couldn’t argue with.


	10. Chapter 10 -- Rachel

There were moments, during the war, when I questioned how the Yeerks were so successful when they were just so stupid.  I mean, we were a group of teenagers thrown into a fight so much bigger than anything we could have imagined, and somehow, we had survived.  A lot of it had been sheer dumb luck.  A lot of it had been Visser Three’s arrogance.

But there was quite a bit of it that had been plain incompetence on the parts of our foes.

Looking around at the airtight, windowless room they had put me in, with a camera in the corner and a heavy guard posted outside, I realized that we Animorphs weren’t the only ones who had learned from the war.  They had separated Marco and me, and blindfolded the both of us.  If he was still within thought-speak range, he was either unconscious or demorphed.

Or dead.

I couldn’t smell the dank, earthy stench I had come to associate with the Yeerk pool.  Instead, there was a metallic tang to the air, and the scent of disinfectant.  A ship, then?  Why hadn’t they infested me yet?  And hadn’t Marco said they were taking us to the Yeerk Pool?

I paced around the room, taking stock of the situation as I thought.  Maybe it was some kind of politics thing—they had to find the right Yeerk for the job or something.  Maybe they wanted to start with Marco.  Maybe they thought I had some sort of defense against infestation and wanted to try questioning me first.  Maybe they had mentioned the Yeerk pool earlier in case we had some way of contacting the others, to throw us off.  Did they know we were “Andalite Bandits” in disguise?

I wished I had Marco with me.  He could always analyze this stuff, figure out what the Yeerks’ plan was.  He was wicked smart, and different from the way that I was smart.  I did well in school and impressed all my teachers while he goofed off, but he could really see things for how they were.  He could read people and their motivations.  Me?  I hated being in those kinds of situations.  I just wanted to react and get out and do things. 

Marco played high-stakes poker.  I played slapjack.

And here I was, trapped, unable to think my way out.  Unable to glean my opponent’s hand.

But, in the end, did it really matter?  Whatever the Yeerk’s motivations, I had to get out of here.  And, thanks to their willingness to leave me relatively alone, I had an opportunity to try something.

The camera was positioned above the door, angled to get most of the room in the view.  There was a space under it where I could be mostly unseen, if I made myself as small as possible.  I couldn’t morph bear straight off without revealing that I was human, but it gave me a little bit of privacy. 

The door itself looked like it was made of steel—or whatever the alien equivalent of steel was—and opened inward.  There was a small window through which I could see the heavily-muscled shoulder of a Hork-Bajir. 

I pressed myself as tightly against the door as I could and focused on my own DNA.  My limbs lengthened as I grew several inches, but that was the most notable change.  As soon as I was back in my own body, I stripped down to my morphing outfit and, using one of the door hinges as a foothold, I jumped.

I whipped Rose’s shirt around the neck of the camera and yanked down with all of my weight—weight that was rapidly increasing as I started morphing grizzly.  With a satisfying crack, the camera gave way and crashed to the floor with a small shower of sparks.  The Hork-Bajir shoulder in the window flinched, and I heard shouting something in the weird mix of alien and English that Hork-Bajir Controllers used.  I dropped to all fours and lumbered to the corner, morphing as fast as I could.  I felt my nose push outward as brown fur erupted everywhere over my body.  Muscle layered over muscle as I gained three feet in height and about six hundred pounds.  My claws grew in, six inches of razor keratin that could rend steel like aluminum foil.

I wasn’t finished when the first Hork-Bajir burst through the door.  He was probably very confused as to why there was a blonde-haired bear in his prisoner’s room.  I relieved him of his confusion by charging and crushing his skull against the door.  The second Hork-Bajir was too concerned with his guts spilling across the floor to do much wondering, either.  By the time I stepped out into the hallway to meet the third and fourth Hork-Bajir, I was a full-grown male grizzly, and I was not in a particularly good mood. 

I dodged a bladed elbow to the face and jammed my paw into the soft belly of the third Hork-Bajir, and then used his body to knock his friend to the ground.  I grabbed the Hork-Bajir’s spine through his insides and yanked.  He stopped squirming.  The other Hork-Bajir was just getting up as I tossed the limp one aside.  I tore his throat out.

I looked around with dim eyes to try to figure out where I was, but I could barely see.  There was a sign on the wall with arrows, but I couldn’t read the language.  So instead, I just picked a direction.

Alarms started blaring and there was the stomp of clawed feet on metal as reinforcements arrived.  I could just make out the form of the one in front.  The rest behind him were a blur.  I ignored them and marked the leader as my first target.  I figured it would be good form to introduce myself.

“Hwwroarrrrr!” I said.

“Andalite!” he replied. 

I gave myself a mental pat on the back for concealing my identity.

Then, laughing to myself, I charged.


	11. Chapter 11 -- Marco

There was something about being tied to a chair in a room full of Hork-Bajir that makes you reevaluate your life choices.  Specifically, the choices that led you to morph the person they were after and lead them on a high-speed chase down the shoulder of an interstate at rush hour.  My head was still fuzzy from cracking it against the car window, and I was constantly fighting the urge to throw up again.  A rough ride with my head in a black bag hadn’t helped.

They had taken Rachel somewhere else.  I had no idea where, but I generally wasn’t in the habit if worrying about her.  I had seen her use her own severed arm as a weapon in battle—she could generally take care of herself.  I was more concerned with my own predicament.

The ropes around my wrists were painfully tight.  Pins and needles had erupted through my fingers, which felt swollen and awkward.  Demorphing would probably give me enough play in the rope to get free, but I didn’t have enough finesse to morph just my arms, and the ten Hork-Bajir in the room with me probably wouldn’t oblige me by turning their backs.

My own back was to the only door in the room.  I was facing a blank white wall; the only fixture was a small sink in the corner.  I could hear it gurgling.  Even without looking inside, I knew that it contained grey sludge and a Yeerk hand-picked for the Doctor—a Yeerk that would crawl through my ear into my brain and sink into its folds.  It would open up my thoughts like a book and find out that I wasn’t the Doctor, that the Doctor wasn’t human, that I was.  It would ferret out the identities of my friends and find out where we lived.  They would all be infested, and the human race would lose.

I was trying very hard not to think too much about it.  That was the kind of train of thought that kept you from thinking of a solution.  I needed to focus on a way out.

So instead of thinking about how I had doomed my friends and the entire human race, I tried to figure out where I was.  I was pretty sure they had put me into a Bug Fighter at some point, and together with the lack of dank-earth smell, that indicated that I wasn’t in the Yeerk pool.  Had they changed their minds at the last minute, or had this been the plan all along?

I looked over at the nearest Hork-Bajir.  He was leaning against the wall, picking at his claws absentmindedly. 

“Hey you,” I said.  The Hork-Bajir glanced up at me, somehow managing to look disgusted with a beak.  “Yeah, you,” I continued.  “Where am I?”  He rolled his eyes and took a breath like he was about to answer, but then stood ramrod straight in perfect attention, not even breathing.

<Have you been enjoying yourself on my Blade ship, Doctor?>

Oh, fuck.

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

Of course he would be here.  He was always there when you least wanted him.

Visser Three. 

His hooves clanged as he walked around my chair.  The only Yeerk ever to infest an Andalite, and yet you could never mistake him for being just an Andalite.  Something about him radiated evil.  Combined with what I knew about him on top of that, I nearly wet my plants.

I stayed quiet.

<Your silence won’t help you, Doctor,> said the Visser.  <We have your companion, we have your ship, and very soon we will have your mind.>

“Then why are you even here?” I spat.  Something niggled in the back of my head, where the web of timelines sat.  I had stopped paying attention to them because it had been too confusing—and demoralizing—to watch all of the ways I had died, was dying, and was going to die.  But there was a slight motion now that drew my attention to it as I cowered in front of the Visser.  I poked at it, and it shifted more, the individual lines vibrating with energy, like they were anticipating something.

<A voluntary host is always preferable to an involuntary one,> said Visser Three.  <We will let your Companion go if you agree.  Knowing you, you will take any chance to spare the life of your friend.>

I looked up at him, confused.

“What do you mean, ‘knowing me?’”

Ax has this way of smiling with his eyes—something to do with the way he angles the stalks.  When he does it, it usually gives you this warm feeling inside, like you can feel his happiness.  When the Visser did it, it just made me feel sick.  I could feel the bile rising in my throat and had to swallow a few times to force it down.

<The humans have quite an extensive record of you, Doctor, as do several of the species we control.>  He sneered.  <The Doctor and Rose Tyler in the TARDIS.  How can two people make such an impact through time and space?  What is inside your ship, Doctor?>

Again, I chose to remain silent, partly because I didn’t want to give myself away in ignorance, and partly because I was trying to figure out how Visser Three knew what he knew.  The Doctor had said that this was their first flight, hadn’t he?  But Visser Three had said ‘through time and space.’  So the Doctor could travel in time?  _Would_ travel in time?  Considering the mess that was in my head, I couldn’t say it surprised me. 

Still, the thought was like being doused with cold water.  If the Yeerks got hold of that kind of technology…  I thought of chasing Visser Four through history and shuddered.

Then two things happened in very short succession.

The timelines in my head shifted violently, and there was a mighty, angry roar from somewhere else on the ship.

I smiled at Visser Three.

Rachel was out.


	12. Cassie

The inside of the TARDIS was much bigger than the outside. What we thought was a blue wooden box was actually a cavernous structure of coral and metal and light. The console in the center was covered with buttons and levers, none of which were labeled. This did not stop the Doctor from dancing around from one switch to another, carrying out a sequence I couldn’t follow. 

I was the last Animorph to walk into the TARDIS. Rose brought up the rear, carefully closing the door behind her before joining the Doctor at the console. Tobias and Ax had situated themselves by a leather-covered chair on the far side of the door. Tobias, perched on the back of the seat, flared his wings as the TARDIS lurched and the center column began to pulsate with a grinding, screeching sound.

asked Ax, his delicate hands over his ears.

“Of course!” cried the Doctor, laughing. “We’re punching into the time vortex!”

Ax turned his main eyes to Tobias, and I could tell he was saying something private. I shook my head and looked for Jake.

I found him standing as far from the console as he could, leaning against the railing with his arms folded across his chest. His forehead was wrinkled with his frowning. I could feel my own brows furrow in sympathy. I made my way over to him as carefully as I could—only barely keeping my balance—and leaned against the rail next to him, my shoulder brushing against his arm. We both were quiet for a moment, him thinking about who-knew-what and me allowing my attention to drift between my friends and the Doctor and Rose. 

“Do you think he can do it?” Jake’s voice startled me. He brushed his fingers against my arm in apology for making me jump, and then repeated his question.

“I think…” I paused for a moment, then continued more slowly. “I think that he thinks he can do it,” I said. “It seems to me that they’ve done stuff like this before.”

“But?”

“Not really a ‘but.’ Just, I don’t know, Jake. You know that I don’t like the things we’ve had to do. I can’t remember a single mission we’ve been on that hasn’t involved killing people or almost dying. Or both. Usually both.

“More and more, it seems like violence is the only answer. Maybe it is, and maybe the Doctor’s plan is going to get us all killed.”

“But you’d hate it if we got to the end, and couldn’t say we tried to end things with peace when we had the chance.”

I nodded. His fingers brushed my arm again. I couldn’t tell if he was apologizing for something, or if it was sympathy.

“What about you, Jake?” I asked. “What do you think?”

“If they are time travelers like they say they are,” he replied softly, “and they haven’t heard of the Yeerks, what happened to wipe all of them from history? What happened to all of the Controllers? The Yeerks? The Andalites? Maybe they don’t know the Yeerks, but they don’t know our city either because it was wiped out in a freak ‘accident.’”

“You sound like Marco,” I joked, halfhearted. A ghost of a smile crossed Jake’s face. Then, he shook his head.

“I don’t trust them, Cassie. But I think you’re right that we have to try.” He looked at me. “If there’s a chance that this can work… I want this war to end.” He turned his attention back to the Doctor and Rose. I leaned into his shoulder, trying to give him strength. We stayed that way for a while, watching the Doctor hook up the Yeerk he had captured to some wires coming from the console. Jake took a deep breath and pushed away from the railing before walking over to Tobias and Ax, not even stumbling once.

I thought about what Jake had said. Was there a way this could all end with peace? Was there a way this could all end in peace that would also stop it from being known worldwide? Was that even a good thing? If we survived this and beat the Yeerks, shouldn’t humanity use this as a stepping stone to begin looking more closely at the stars? To join all the races out there? There were too many questions, and the Doctor and Rose weren’t providing any answers. Not that there had been much time for answers.

I had convinced Jake to let them help us. We could have hidden them away somewhere and tackled this ourselves, but I told Jake that they could help. Told him that we didn’t have a chance getting Marco and Rachel out on our own. 

I believed that was true, deep down. We were more royally screwed than we had ever been. We put our lives on the line constantly, and all of us would be dead were it not for the healing of morphing, but having two of us captured was so much worse than that. Being captured would hand over our families. It would hand over the morphing technology to the Yeerks. It would hand over the free Hork-Bajir colony. It would hand over the Chee. I shuddered.

“Are you okay?”

I tore my eyes away from the glowing, pulsing center column and turned to face Rose, steeling myself as best I could.

“No, of course not,” I said. Then I shrugged. “But then, things haven’t been okay for a long time.”

“How long have you been fighting?” Rose asked, brow furrowed.

“Over two years.” I shrugged again.

“Two—two years?” Rose looked shocked, off balance. Good.

“You two are from the future, right?”

“I—what? What does that have to do with anything?”

“It has everything to do with everything. Him I could believe being an alien, but I don’t think you are. Besides, you sound British or something. And since I haven’t heard anything about time travel before, that means you’ve got to be from the future, right?” Rose sighed.

“I told him. I told him we wouldn’t be able to keep that secret.” She shook her head. “Yes, we’re from the future.” I opened my mouth. “But, before you say anything,” she rushed on, holding up a hand, “Know that I _cannot_ tell you anything. I’ve broken the laws of time before and, trust me, the aftermath isn’t pretty.” I pressed my lips together instead, frowning. 

Rose pulled me into her arms and rubbed my back.

“Look,” she said. “The Doctor will end this, trust me. Everything will be okay.” Her voice sounded thick, like she was about to cry, so I returned her hug, nodded into her chest, and let her comfort me.


End file.
